Purple Thorn Apple (Datura Tatula) is a large, ill-scented, rank-growing weed with a stout, smooth stem from 1 to 5 feet high. The long-stemmed leaves have very irregular, coarsely toothed outlines. The lavender-colored, trumpet-shaped flowers are about four inches long. The flaring corolla has five broad, sharply pointed lobes and is seated in a light-green, five-parted calyx about half its length. Usually the color of the corolla is more intense on the lobes and often shades to white toward the base of the tube. After flowering a large green fruit capsule about two inches long appears; it is ovoid in shape and armed with stout prickles. The entire plant has poisonous juices. It grows in waste ground, especially about barnyards, from Me. to Minn. and southward.
Thorn Apple; Jimson Weed (Datura Stramonium) also comes from across the water; it is very similar to the preceding, grows in the same places and in the same range. The flowers are white and the leaves are lighter green; the stem is also somewhat stouter.
FIGWORT FAMILY
(Scrophulariaceæ)
(A) Common or Great Mullein (Verbascum Thapsus) (European). This well-known plant is one of the most common sights along roadsides and in dry fields. Its long stalk rises from 2 to 7 feet above ground.
Mullein leaves are very soft, with fine white downy hairs; they have given to the plant a name very often applied—“Flannel Plant.” The ones on the tall stalk are smaller and diminish in size to bracts as they reach the bottom of the long flower spike. From June until September these flowers open a few at a time and last but a day. The light-yellow corolla has five uneven, concaved lobes and five protruding stamens.
(B) Moth Mullein (Verbascum Blattaria) (European) has a tall, very slender stalk at the summit of which is a loose raceme. The flowers are large, have five petals, very prominent stamens, and orange anthers. The upper leaves are lance-shaped, the lower ones have the margins deeply cut, toothed, and notched. It is common from Me. to Ontario and southward.
(A) Blue Toadflax (Linaria canadensis). This is a very slender and dainty species, the stem attaining heights of 5 to 30 inches.